


If you’ll be my star, I’ll be your sky

by twistedsky



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:24:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedsky/pseuds/twistedsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post 1x08. “What is this, Hercules? Do I need to find you singing goddesses so that you’ll stop being so emotionally constipated?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you’ll be my star, I’ll be your sky

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Includes references to canonical abuse, canonical attempted suicide, and mildly explicit sex.
> 
> All errors are my own, and I don't own Agents of SHIELD. This also contains side Skye/Fitz, but it isn't a big thing, so it seems wrong to tag it.

If the pain and rage he’s been carrying for years is going to be front and center for the next few decades, Grant thinks he may as well live his life as if it’ll never go away.

He’s not giving up on moving on, but the staff brought his darkest memories into the forefront of his mind, and since they’re _his_ memories, it isn’t as if he doesn’t deserve it. All he can do is focus on his job, and on blunting the ache inside of him with distractions and pure _focus._

When he can focus, well and truly, everything else falls away. That’s what he needs now—he needs the freedom of distractions, of anything but Asgardian technology and memories of the twisted nature of his older brother and the guilt that he carries for being complicit at first.

He’s never getting that guilt, even with the knowledge that he’d tried to make things right. After the nightmare of the well, he’d _always_ put himself between Jack and Andrew. He’d never let anything like that happen again, but that doesn’t make him feel better. His selfishness had frozen him in fear when his brother had needed him, and so he deserves to carry that pain around with him for the rest of his life.

He’d never let fear for himself stop him from protecting someone else again, which is why SHIELD had been such a godsend.

SHIELD had given him that focus he’d craved—it had given him _purpose_.

He doesn’t like to work with people, because the idea of having someone else get hurt(or _die)_ during a mission and him not being able to save them is terrifying.

He’d rather it just be him versus the bad guys, because then there’s nothing to lose.

But now he has a team, and he doesn’t have a choice about it. And in a few short months, they’ve begun to matter to him in ways he can barely articulate, but he _needs_ them now. They fill up spaces in him—the cracks he normally ignores—and they’re the closest thing he’s had to family since he and Drew had gone their separate ways.

He doesn’t tell them that, of course, because how could he? FitzSimmons is a unit he’ll never be part of, and Coulson and May might open up at times, but they’re still removed from the situation, as if they’re as afraid to open up as he is, and he’s not even sure if he can trustSkye most of the time.

So after the rage sparks something in him, he knows he needs them, but he also knows he has to be careful with them.

He apologizes to Skye first, because she’s there, like she always is, talking and talking and talking. It isn’t that he entirely hates it, but even before he’d touched the staff, she’d knocked up against his walls, trying to break them down.

She reminds him of Drew that way—the way she thinks that she needs to save him, even though it’s his job to protect her.

The truth is that Skye is much like the little sister he’d never hadnor wanted.

 Yet the thing about family (of the non-awful variety, that is) is thatonce you have them you don’t want to give them up, even if you should.

The others are the same—Fitz and he can’t seem to get along half of the time, but Grant trusts him to have his back, and he does not do so easily. May and Coulson are efficient, exceedingly good at what they do, and kind, and so they make him feel oddly safe too.

Simmons, on the other hand, reminds him so much of himself, so staunchly willing to do whatever she thinks is necessary, even if that means killing herself to save the rest of them.

When she’d jumped out of the bus, he’d _known_ that he’d had to go after her. After, he’d felt foolishly relieved that Fitz had told him the cure had worked, because if it hadn’t—he still can’t wrap his head around the irrationality of his thought process.

Simmons is both the easiest and the hardest of the team for him to connect with. She’s easy to talk to, and it’s simple enough to promise to catch her if she falls of that tree, and it even feels like he’s promising to _always_ catch her if she falls and—well, that’s exactly what it means.

She’s easy to talk to, but he feels a weird weight in his stomach when he’s around her sometimes.

In the end she, like the rest of them, matters to him. They need him to be at his best, and so he’ll do whatever is necessary to get back to that. There are things he needs that only they can give, which is why when May leaves her door open the night after all of his old wounds are ripped back open, he follows her.

May—May can _handle_ this. He doesn’t need to make excuses with her, because she carries around her own darkness, and if she can face it every day, then he can do the same. He can be strong, and fill his life up with things that keep him from faltering, and he can do his job and protect his people.

And so drinking with May, and even sleeping with May, is not a big deal.

She can handle sex without it having to mean anything more, and that’s why he walks away from Skye at the bar, and why he doesn’t even dare consider Simmons.

It isn’t even really about the sex. It’s an act of comfort, of healing intimacy that he needs in this moment. The drinking beforehand, and the brief, clipped story that May tells him is what blunts the searing pain and fire of the gaping wound he feels in his chest, and the sex is just an extension of that.

The next morning he feels less unhinged, even if he’s far from okay.

~~

He apologizes to Fitz next, because he assumes that he’ll be the hardest.

And he is, really.

He’d hit Fitz where it hurts the most, aiming directly at Fitz’s insecurity over his inability to save Simmons. The truth is that Fitz would have jumped after her if Grant hadn’t been there, and they both know that, but Fitz doesn’t believe it, and Grant had slipped the knife in right at that soft spot.

He waits until Simmons slips out of the lab, and breathes deeply before walking into the lab.

Fitz looks up from some new weapon he’s trying to perfect, and Grant feels himself grimace. It’s meant to be a smile, but this is usually how his smiles end up.

Fitz winces, and Grant feels even worse.

“I don’t have any new weapons for you. This is for someone Coulson knows.” It looks like some kind of specialized stun gun, but Grant doesn’t particularly care.

“I’m not here about that,” he says, and he suddenly wants to sink into the floor, and he nearly slaps himself for the thought. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

Grant Ward does not want to sink into the floor, that is a silly weakness, and therefore unacceptable. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself. “I’m sorry.”

Fitz makes an odd noise that sounds a bit like a snort, and it’s Grant’s turn to wince. “Of course you are.”

“I am,” he repeats.

Fitz simply shakes his head and goes back to whatever the hell he’s doing.

“I was angry,” Grant begins, when he realizes that Fitz isn’t going to help this along. “And I wasn’t in my right mind, and I said something I knew would bother you, because I’m an asshole.”

“That’s true,” Fitz doesn’t look back up at him, but he stops fiddling with the scary-looking stun gun, and Grant decides that must be progress.

“It wasn’t right of me of say that, or fair, or, well, true. You saved my ass on our last mission together, and I—“ he’s floundering now, because fucking people skills, _why doesn’t he have any?_

“Okay,” Fitz says, looking up with a slight smile. It looks like he’s perversely enjoying Grant’s discomfort, and Grant figures he deserves that. “I will take your apology under advisement.”

“Uh,” Grant says. “I’m sorry.”

“You said that already,” Fitz teases, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“And he means it, so you’ll accept his apology and stop teasing, Fitz,” Simmons delicately chides, slipping into the lab behind them. “You and I have already had this conversation, and you know how people get when they’re under the influence of alien technology, so you’ll understand that he didn’t mean what he said, and if he did—“ she gives him a look that both scares and thrills him, and then she smiles wickedly. “Well, then he’d regret it, wouldn’t he?”

“Absolutely,” Grant replies.

Fitz sighs, as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and makes a show of walking up to Grant and shaking his hand. “I suppose I could forgive you,” he says, smiling slightly.

“Thank you,” Grant says sincerely. “The things I said—I don’t believe that, and neither does Simmons.”

Simmons claps her hands together. “He’s right. So now that that’s settled, we have work to do.”

Fitz nods. “I should—uh” he looks between the two of them. “I should go show Coulson the latest iteration of this. It’s a slightly less dangerous version of the standard SHIELD stun gun, you know. I said I’d revamp it as a favor to him, anyway--” he trails off, inching his way out of the lab.

Simmons simply raises an eyebrow and smiles at Fitz. “Of course.”

She turns back to face Grant and he attempts to smile at her, and this time it must be less of a grimace because she beams back at him.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she very nearly instructs him. “I understand.”

“I know you do,” he says, and oddly enough it’s true. “But I am. I’m sorry.”

She waves, dismissing the apology. “You had to apologize to Fitz, but you didn’t really do anything worthy of an apology to me. You were upset, and a bit testy, but I get that way when I skip my midmorning snack. I understand,” she repeats.

“But—“he starts to say, but then she starts shaking her head.

“I am trying to make light of this, Ward. Let me.”

He considers her words, and then nods. “Thank you, Simmons.” In order to deal with the jittery feeling in his skin, and the ache in his chest, he needs this. He needs to know that his team understands, and that he can go back to trying to protect them without them hating him, and they’re all making it too easy—minus Fitz, of course. It’s okay.

He lets out a deep breath and feels some of the tension dissipate.

“You can call me Jemma, if you’d like,” she says suddenly, interrupting his mildly revelatory moment.

“What?”

“Jemma. You call Skye by her first name—though now that I think about it, I don’t know that I even know what her last name is,” she scrunches her nose in consternation, as if she’s discovered a new mystery that she wants to take apart piece by piece until she understands it.She’s a bit bloody-minded, or so he’s noticed. “You can call me Jemma.”

“I don’t know if that’s—“he can’t really think of a reason not to, except his fear of further intimacy with the group. They’re companionable now, but he feels more and more attached and afraid with every passing day.

“And I will call you Grant, except when I don’t,” she declares, reaching out awkwardly to pat his arm. “Anyway, I’m sure you have things to do, and I certainly do, so go forth with your heart a little lighter.”

“Thank you, Simmo—“she gives him a look—“Thank you, Jemma.”

“No problem,” shesighs. “And, well, I’m not very good at it, but if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. I mean, I’m sure there are others you’d rather talk to, and I do tend to ramble, but I can listen, I swear. And I, uh, you did help me with that tree situation. And the jumping out of the bus situation.”

“I was just—“

“I know, I know, doing your job. But I just want you to remember that if _you_ fall, you have the rest of us to catch you. Metaphorically or not.”

Jemma pats his arm one last time and heads to the fridge to take out some bright glowing bottle, and he really doesn’t care to know what it is, so he walks away feeling, indeed, a little lighter.

~~

In the coming weeks, he has good days and bad days.

There are some days when he snaps a little, and other days when he feels oddly at peace.

He’s still struggling, though, with the intensity of emotions he’d hoped he’d buried long ago.

Before, he’d been able not to think about it, but now that’s all he _can_ do, because the memories are right at the surface, sometimes so much that he’s nearly drowning in them.

He doesn’t sleep with May again, but they do have a few more chats, and that helps. Skye fills up the silences with comfortable noise, and they all settle back into a comfortable groove.

The missions help most of the time. It’s easier to focus on an endgame, on accomplishing a task, than it is to deal with the quiet of his mind.

He wakes up more often than not in the middle of the night to the sound of his brother’s voice in his nightmares, calling for him, _begging_ for him to help.

He did, eventually, he remembers.

It just wasn’t soon enough.

~~

“I do like movie night,” Jemma says, plopping herself down on the couch next to Skye, nudging her ever so slightly closer to Fitz. “I’d say we should have it more often, but where would we find the time?”

“I don’t know, I think we should make time though,” Skye leans back into the couch and props her feet up on the coffee table in front of them.

“Feet off the table,” May says automatically, and Jemma has to will herself not to smile at how _motherly_ she sounds. It’s cute, really.

Jemma watches Coulson and Grant walk into the room and forces herself not to stare.

They’re talking about a recent mission, which Jemma would rather they didn’t, because Fitz almost _died_ , and that’s, well, unacceptable.

“Enough shop talk,” Skye reprimands, and Jemma feels herself relax back onto the couch. “Come sit down, it’s time for a team-bonding exercise.”

“I can think of much better team-bonding exercises,” Grant says. “Plus, they’d be physically strenuous.” He looks like he’d much rather punch or shoot things than sit down and watch a movie, so Jemma refrains from teasing him.

Skye does not. “Of course those are the kinds you can think of,” Skye says with a roll of her eyes. “But Coulson declared movie night to be an acceptable form of team-bonding, and because it’s the only one on the list that comes with popcorn, it’s the one we’re doing.”

Grant gives her a friendly glare, and Skye narrows her eyes, and tries to glare back at him until she ends up giggling and pressed into Fitz, who looks rather happy at the turn of events, and Jemma meets Grant’s gaze, and they share a friendly smile.

They do that a lot, she knows. It always makes her stomach twist up in knots in that fun little early crush way.

She’s not stupid, and she can see the connection between Grant and the other women on board, and she knows she’s the least likely candidate if he even were to let his walls down,which she’s not even sure that he would.

She’s smart, and not unattractive, and she knows that, but she also knows that Melinda May is gorgeous and strong, and _Jemma_ wouldn’t say no if she invited her to bed, not that she would. Melinda and Grant have much more in common than Jemma does with him. Skye, on the other hand, is younger and pretty, and tends to draws people in.

Jemma knows that she and Grant are friends, but she has no illusions about the outcome of this crush she has.

It won’t last, it won’t go anywhere, and that’s for the best, she reminds herself as the movie finally starts. She leans against the couch and focuses her complete attention on the screen in front of her.

~~

He doesn’t have a death wish, but there are times when he pushes a little too far during a mission, when a tiny part of him aches a little too much, and although he hates to lose, and he would never do something that could purposefully hurt his teammates, he’s reckless.

He gets ridiculously close to doing things that could end up hurting him—there’s a danger and a fear in him that he can’t explain, and can’t admit.

He doesn’t push too hard most of the time—he pulls back, he stays focused, he gets the job done. But there are times when he falters.

He’s on edge.

~~

“You almost _died_ ,” Skye practically yells at Grant. “Are you a fucking _idiot?”_

Grant just sighs with exhaustion and bows his head. “I’m right here. You don’t have to yell.”

This is the exact wrong thing to say, and then Skye _does_ yell at him. “Is this loud enough for you?” she screams.  She glares at him, crossing her arms.

“It was rather idiotic,” Fitz agrees, interrupting the silence.

Grant turns to him, and Fitz looks up at a spot on the ceiling, as if there’s something very interesting there.

“It was,” Coulson agrees, and May simply shrugs when Grant looks to _her_ for support.

“He did manage to survive though,” Jemma points out, and they all turn to her. “But, uh—“she shakes her fist. “He did almost die. So that’s bad. And next time he’ll be more careful, won’t he?” She turns to Grant. “I don’t want you to die.” She says it so sincerely, and almost desperately, like she really needs him to believe it, that Grant feels even more uncomfortable.

They all care too much about him.

It feels nice, he decides.

“Thank you,” Grant says wryly, deciding to try to bring a little levity to the heaviness in the room. “I feel supported.”

And later that night, when he’s trying to tend to his own wounds, Jemma, without saying a word, takes over for him.

“Thank you.”

Jemma simply nods, and then proclaims him road-worthy. Before he leaves, however, she calls out to him. “Do you know what the scariest part of falling from the bus was?”

He turns to face her, unable to answer.

“Almost dying,” she says softly. “And if it weren’t for you and Fitz, I would have died,” she holds his gaze, even though it’s clear that she’s uncomfortable with the words she’s saying, true as they are.

Jemma seems to debate inwardly with herself and then sighs, “When you die,” she continues solemnly, “You’re the only one who doesn’t actually have to deal with the consequences, because, well, you’re dead.”

She turns back to her work after that, and he knows when he’s being dismissed, so he leaves.

He tries not to push too far again after that though, unless it’s to save his team.

~~

“We just have to pick up this scientist and get him back to the Hub,” Coulson says. “Should be a simple operation, unless the worst case scenario occurs, in which case we’ll have to rescue him too.”

“Why are we playing chauffer?” Skye asks idly, tapping her fingers along the panel, waiting for him to release the data on the scientist so that she can check up on him.

“In case of the worst case scenario,” Jemma suggests.

“Oh,” Skye says, scrunching up her face. “I see. Well, what’s the guy’s name?”

Coulson taps on the panel next to her and brings up the profile. “Andrew Ward.”

The picture is unmistakably of his brother, and Grant feels his stomach sink. “Oh.”

“Oh my god,” Skye’s eyes widen almost comically. “Is that your—is he--?”

“My brother?” Grant finishes, and Fitz, Jemma and Skye just look at him open-mouthed. “Yes.”

~~

It’s not as easy as grabbing Drew from the apartment he’d been living in while working on some top secret project for SHIELD.

In fact, it’s a lot harder than that, because it seems that he’s been missing for about a week, and there’s weird goo all over the carpet in the living room.

“It’s going to be okay,” Skye tells Grant. “We’ll find him and everything will be _fine_.”

Grant doesn’t say anything. He wills himself into stillness. He looks around the room and sees Jemma looking up at him from collecting the goo. She nods at him as if to say _yes_ , we’ll find him, everything will be okay, listen to Skye.

He reaches for calmness. “Skye, please just see if there’s something you can hack to find him.” He keeps his tone even, somehow masking the rage that’s currently consuming him.

Skye nods. “I promise.” She hesitates briefly before leaving him to stew in his thoughts.

Jemma walks up to him cautiously. “She’s right. We’ll find him.”

Grant knows this, because there aren’t any other options, because all he can think about it how he shouldn’t have let Drew join SHIELD. He should have known better—a voice tells him that Drew would have done it anyway, because for all that Grant has tried to protect him, Drew is not a pushover, and he does what he wants to do.

“What if we don’t?” he hears himself ask anyway, stunning himself.

A flicker of surprise crosses her face, but then she gives him a firm look. “We will.”

He feels a ‘but’ rising up, but he suppresses it.

“This isn’t your fault,” Jemma says sharply.

Grant raises a brow and just stares at her noncommittally. “I didn’t say it was.”

“I know,” Jemma reddens a little, clearly flustered.  “I’m just reminding you that it isn’t, in case you were maybe, possibly, blaming yourself, like you always do.”

Grant stiffens. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do,” Jemma says, a tad more confidently. “Coulson may be in charge, and Melinda may be able to beat you in a fight—“

“That’s debatable,” he interjects, even though it really isn’t.

“—but you still think you’re our protector. And I’m sure you think of yourself as your brother’s protector too. It’s only natural.” She stops to breathe then, and she avoids looking him in the eye, just in case he’s angry. “But this isn’t your fault. And we’re going to help you save him.” She reaches out to pat his arm, but then thinks better of it, and goes to grab her equipment for the trek back to the bus.

Grant just stands there, trying to regain control of his emotions.

He’s scared, and it hurts way too much.

~~

“I analyzed the gooey bits to discover that it contains water, which isn’t really surprising, because gooey bits often contain water.” Jemma looks up from said gooey bits and pushes her goggles up off her face.

“The point, Simmons,” Coulson says, patiently.

“Oh,” she deflates. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble, because I know time is of the essence, I’m just trying to explain that there’s a particular mineral that came along with it. They’re amateurs in that regard—and that mineral probably comes from wherever they are, and it’s actually a bit uncommon, so—“she turns to Skye and nods.

Skye brings up a map. “This is the region we narrowed it down to, and from there I hacked some security cams to find video of this vehicle—“ she brings it up on the monitor, “Which was also seen across the street from your brother’s apartment around when he think he may have disappeared,” Skye nods at Grant. “There’s a minor problem though.”

Skye brings up the schematics for the building.

May leans toward the architectural designs. “The security system is to be genetically tied to specific, higher-ranking members of this group. We’re going to need to grab one.”

“How difficult is that going to be?” Grant asks, not relaxing even a little at the news that they’ve found his brother. It’s far from over.

“Difficult,” Coulson answers, and Grant nods his head. He’s expected as much.

“It also seems that there’s—“Skye starts, and then hesitates. “A failsafe. I managed to pick up some of the chatter, and some of the guards were gossiping about how they wouldn’t want to be around if it went off.”

“Which means,” Fitz cuts in, looking a little queasy, “That I have to be part of the extraction team. It sounds like a nasty bugger.”

Jemma reaches out to put her hand over Fitz’s. “It’ll be fine. You’ll all be fine. You can take the night night gun, if you’d like. I don’t think Ward would mind.”

“I don’t,” Grant says. The implication is that he’ll be shooting to kill on this mission. The rest of them say nothing.

Coulson simply nods. “Let’s get to work.”

~~

“Idiot,” Jemma says, applying a bandage to the burn on Fitz’s hand. “I can’t believe you actually thought it was okay to touch the pipes with the ridiculously hot water running through them.”

Her words are chiding, but her voice is soft and soothing. “You won’t be able to touch much of anything with this hand for a few days.”

Fitz, properly scolded, gives her a one-armed hug, squishing her tightly, and she relaxes into the hug. “Thank you.”

“Well,” Jemma pulls away. “I’m glad you’re mostly okay.”

“Me too,” he tells her with a smile.

Grant watches awkwardly from the doorway as Jemma leans forward and kisses Fitz’s cheek. “You know I don’t know what I’d do without you, Leo.”

“I know.”

Afraid they’ll start getting even more sappy and emotional, Grant clears his throat, and they both turn to look at him.

“Oh hello, Grant.” Jemma smiles brightly at him.

Fitz echoes her hello. “I should go. Skye probably needs, uh, company.”

“She’s with my brother.”

“Even more reason to go,” Fitz replies, glancing at Jemma one last time before heading off.

“He doesn’t have to worry,” Grant says, walking in gingerly. “My brother has been with his current girlfriend for the past five years.”

“Oh,” Jemma gives him a mild glare, ignoring his words. “You look terrible.” She pulls him over to sit down in front of her little makeshift medical space. “You know, I have a doctorate in biochemistry, and I spend half my time playing doctor.”

“You’re the most qualified,” he points out, wincing in pain when he resettles in the chair.

“That is true,” she concedes. “Shirt off.”

“I just need stiches on my face—“

“Liar,” Jemma says, knowing it’s true without even thinking. “Off with the shirt.”

“I don’t think—“he starts to say, but then Jemma grabs at the bottom of his shirt and starts pulling it up.

Jemma hisses in sympathy. “That looks terrible.”

There are bruises all over his body and at least two cuts that are deep enough that if they got infected they could be a real problem.

“Well, this is going to sting,” she says softly, dipping a new cloth in what she’d been using to disinfect wounds since she’d been elected medical mistress of the bus. She presses it down on one of the cuts and winces at his sharp intake of breath. Besides that, he doesn’t move at all, so she does her best to avoid hurting him.

“Is that okay?” she asks, tilting her head up to meet his eyes, and subsequently forgetting what she’d just asked.

They’re close, and she can feel the warmth tumbling off his skin, and he’s _bleeding,_ she chastises herself. His eyes are too deep, so she lets her eyes drop to his mouth, which is even worse.

The butterflies in her stomach clench.

 “It’s fine,” he says finally.

“Oh, yes,” her eyes flicker back up to his, and then back down to her hands on his abs.

It’s more than a little awkward, and she’s not entirely sure that if he weren’t so injured she wouldn’t climb onto his lap, so instead she focuses.

“Okay, that should be the last of it,” she says, applying bandages. “I asked Coulson to order more of this cream that Melinda says is good for bruises.” Jemma produces a bottle and opens it up to pat it around some of his more painful looking bruises.

“Thank you.” Grant is surprised. Melinda has her own supply, which means she asked Coulson to get it for _him_ , most likely, and that’s—that’s—nice.

“Well, this is quite the scene,” he hears as he’s watching Jemma carefully.

Jemma hands Grant the bottle, and he’s a little disappointed to realize that he’ll have to finish the rest himself. “I don’t suppose you could get my back?”

“Oh, of course,” she grabs it back from him. She sends Drew a smile. “It’s nice to meet you. I haven’t actually heard anything about you before, but Grant cares about you a lot, so I’m glad you’re okay,” she rambles slightly, to distract herself from what she’s doing, because hello, _muscles_.

Drew, with his slightly lankier frame than Grant, leans against the doorframe. “It’s nice to meet you too . . . “he trails off, waiting for a name.

“Jemma,” she supplies. “And you’re Andrew. I’m almost finished here, so you two can catch up a bit. We have quite a ride back to the Hub, so you should have plenty of time.”

“Thank you,” Drew says with a smile of his own. “You guys have all been so incredibly nice to me. I don’t suppose I could actually have a word with you alone?”

“Oh, of course,” Jemma realizes her hand has been pressed up against Grant’s very muscly back for much longer than necessary and blushes, lifting it.

Grant gives Drew a knowing look as he stands up, grabbing his ruined shirt. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Drew replies quickly. “I can’t want to have a nice conversation with all of Grant’s new friends?”

“I don’t have friends,” Grant says automatically, wincing at the look on Jemma’s face. “I mean, they’re my team.”

Jemma pats his shoulder right where she knows a particularly nasty bruise is. “We’re his friends. He just doesn’t want to admit it, but that’s okay.”

Jemma shoos him away and waits until he’s out of the lab and out of earshot before turning back to Drew. “How can I help you?”

Drew pulls up his shirt and Jemma winces. “Ouch.”

“They needed me to do work for them, so they couldn’t hurt me too badly, but they did like testing how close they could get to ‘too badly.’

“Sit, sit,” Jemma mother hens him. “Why didn’t you want to tell--?" she blanches, seeing old scars on his back. She forces herself to refocus on the new wounds, the ones she can actually do something about.

“Oh, those,” Drew says, way too lighthearted for the pain that they must have once caused him. “They’re old news.”

“They look awful,” Jemma says softly, putting her hand on his shoulder gingerly, supportively she hopes.

“They stopped hurting a long time ago,” Drew assures her. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Grant wasn’t—“he hesitates.

“And Grant wasn’t what?” Jemma questions, trying to be as gentle as possible as she cleans the wounds.

“I don’t—I don’t want to tell you anything that Grant wouldn’t want you to know.”

“Okay,” she replies. “I understand.” She’s seething with fury at whoever did this to him, and she’s horridly curious, but she won’t push it.

Drew looks up from his hands, where he’d been staring, to meet her eyes. “You care about him, right?”

“Of course. We’re friends, no matter what he likes to say.” It had hurt her more than she’d expected to hear him blithely say that they weren’t. She’d thought they were past that.

“It’s hard for him to let people in,” Drew says finally, after a pause. “And he cares about you guys. And I saw the way you guys were looking at each other in here.”

“What do you mean?” If she were that obvious, and Grant had noticed and just not said anything—she winces slightly.

“Just be careful with him.”

“I would never do anything to hurt him,” Jemma is almost insulted at the idea that she would. In fact, she thoroughly is. She presses down a little too hard, and Drew hisses. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Drew laughs. “I’m sure.” He's quiet, and deep in thought after that until Jemma finishes.

Drew stands and turns to look at her. “It took me a long time to open up to someone, and Sophia was really, really patient. I’m lucky, but Grant hasn’t been. So if you guys ever—“

“Me and Grant? No, never. That’s silly. I can’t imagine where you’d get such an idea—“

Drew places a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. I won’t tell him.”

Jemma lets out a relieved breath.

“Just take care of him no matter what, please.”

“Of course,” Jemma promises without hesitation. “We all take care of each other. It’s what we do. We’re a team. ”

“Thank you.”

~~

“So, what do you think?” Grant asks his little brother when he comes back to the otherwise empty social area that Fitz and Skye have already cleared out of, as if to give them time together. “Is Jemma your type?” It’s slightly teasing, but it actually feels a little like jealousy, which just . . . unnerves him.

“I’d say yes, just to mess with you, but I actually, uh, I’m going to marry Sophia.” Drew’s face just lights up. “She’s everything I’ve ever needed, you know?”

“I’m really happy for you,” Grant gives him a half hug, and pats him on the back. “When’s the wedding?”

“First weekend in July. You guys should all come, actually, if you ever get vacation time. Sophia will want to send you guys official invites, of course, so remember to RSVP or she might hurt you.” Drew seems gleeful about that. “Or me, actually,” he sobers slightly, before his smile returns.

He’s always been so happy since Jack left when he turned 18. Grant is happy for him. He’s glad that his brother has found that kind of peace, even if he can’t. “I’m sorry to say that they’ll probably all want to come. They’re very, uh, energetic.”

“I am too.” Drew leans against a wall and gives him a considering look. “What’s wrong?”

Grant folds his arms in front of him protectively. “That’s above your clearance level.”

“Ouch, that bad?” Drew narrows his eyes at Grant and then breathes deeply. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but I do know that something is, so tell me something, at least, so that I can help.”

Grant hesitates, giving him a considering glance. “I keep reliving the day that Jack trapped you in the well.”

Drew deflates, leaning more heavily against the wall. “You know I don’t blame you for that.”

“I do,” Grant says. “I made a mistake.”

“You hesitated. But not for long. He _threatened_ you, and he beat you when you pulled me up before he said you could. You _saved_ me, and I don’t blame you for that. You are my brother, and I love you.”

Grant buries his head in his hands. “I can’t get past it.”

Drew pulls himself across the room, and sits down next to his brother. “You will, “ he says, placing an arm around him. “And if you need help, you have me.”

Grant looks up at him, and then around the room. “I’ll be okay, eventually.” I have them, he thinks.

~~

“Yo, I totally just got the invite to your brother’s wedding. That is so cute,” Skye says, practically skipping into the lab where Grant is trying out the balance of some new weapon.

“Oh, we got ours today too,” Jemma says happily. “Fitz and I haven’t been to a wedding since his sister Elsa stood up her fiancé on their wedding day.”

“I do wish she would have told me she intended to run out on the man,” Fitz sighs. “Scott broke down in tears, and out of some silly ‘oh hey, we’re going to be family’ sensibility, she even forced me to be his _best man_. It was awful.”

“I love a good wedding,” Jemma says fondly. “They had lovely cake.”

Fitz nods in agreement. “Oh yes, the cake was fantastic. I only had one piece though, because I had to keep Scott company while he drank himself into a stupor, and then when he vomited in the harpist’s lap.” Fitz shudders. “It was a disaster.”

Grant just shakes his head. “I don’t think this wedding will be like that.”

“Oh, I hope it will be,” Skye says, clearly excited by the story. “Maybe minus your brother getting stood up at the altar. And the vomiting.” Skye trails off at that, and then frowns. “Ignore me.”

“Already done,” Grant says, turning back to the gun in front of him. “Are you guys, um, going?”

“Absolutely,” Skye pumps her fist into the air above her. “Coulson already said we could all go, barring the end of the world, anyway. I really hope that doesn’t happen.”

“I’m pretty sure all of us hope that, Skye,” Jemma teases. “Minus the people who actually _want_ to do the ending and such, I can’t really think of any exceptions.”

“Because there aren’t any,” Fitz says, his attention on Grant. Grant, who is fiddling with the gun as if he’s annoyed. “Please don’t break that.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“But sometimes you just—“ Jemma places her hand on Fitz’s shoulder without even turning to face him, and Fitz sighs. “Fine.”

Skye pouts at Jemma. “Did you just stop a boy fight? I was hoping they’d get naked and roll around in some mud, and beat the crap out of each other, of course.”

Jemma just shrugs. “Sorry.”

“I have completely lost track of this conversation,” Grant says suddenly.

“I think we all have,” Jemma agrees, looking toward him and smiling. “So it’s settled. We’re going to your brother’s wedding.”

“God help us,” he says softly under his breath as Skye _whoops_ loudly and high fives Fitz, and then Jemma.

Fitz and Skye don’t seem to hear him, but Jemma gives him a look, and smiles slightly, and he knows she did. He shrugs simply, and Jemma positively beams at him before getting wrapped up in a tight hug by Skye.

~~

“So, are you and Fitz going to wear matching outfits?”

Jemma looks up from her late night snack in the lab. “What?” It’s nearly 3 am, and she’s more than a little off-balance by his sudden appearance and strange line of questioning.

Grant settles in a stool across the table that Jemma is eating at, and Jemma narrows her eyes at him before nudging the plate of Oreos closer to him.

He raises an eyebrow at them, before reaching for one. “It just seems like the kind of thing you two would do.”

Jemma’s pinky pulls the plate a few inches back toward herself, and while Grant could easily reach out and grab another, he realizes he’s been thoroughly chastised. “Fitz and I are not twins, nor are we odd antisocial creatures who wear matching costumes to wedding.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” Grant apologizes. “When I first met you guys, I thought you were one person. Then I thought you were siblings, or married, or—“

Jemma nods, “Most people do. We tried dating once, but it didn’t really work. We’re perfectly platonic friends.” She tells herself, and then repeats it again and again as a mantra in her mind, that he is just curious, and certainly not fishing for information. While she’s doing this, she misses the brief look of relief that flutters across his face.

He doesn’t even really know _why_ he’s relieved, he just _is_.

He’s feeling nervy again, and he wants to know that his team is exactly what he thinks they are, and that’s it, clearly, that’s all it is.

“Love is difficult, you know?” he hears her say suddenly, and he turns to face her.

“Yes, it is,” he agrees simply.

“I’ve only been in love once. I was five years old, and there was this red-haired little boy who I’d often play with. One day, he got a chemistry set for his birthday—oh, just a child-safe version, of course, to inspire young minds—and that was it, I was in love. Science has never let me down.”

Jemma grabs an Oreo, taking it apart and licking at the inside.

Grant feels a warm burn in his stomach, and that feeling he recognizes quite well. _Lust._ He forces his gaze away from her mouth, and her lips, and her _tongue._

He realizes he hasn’t eaten his own cookie, and he’s just been holding onto it, so he bites into it, and Jemma’s face goes from happy to horrified in a split second.

“What have you _done_?” she hisses. “You’re doing it wrong.”

“It’s just a cookie.”

Jemma places a hand over his, which is currently still holding a cookie. His other hand tenses on the table next to the cookie plate. “You have broken my heart,” she says solemnly.

“I’m sorry?” He’s a little distracted by the warmth of her hand over his own, and by the sight of her leaning so closely to him.

“It’s okay, I will teach you the way of the Oreo cookie. You see, you have to eat the filling first, and then you dip the cookie in milk and eat that.”

“I don’t think that’s how you eat Oreos.”

Jemma’s hand flies off his own to land above her heart. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “You did not just say that.”

Grant can feel a smile pulling at his lips, but he’s rather enjoying her reactions, so he contains it, and tilts his head. “Oreo cookies are designed to be eaten as they are. Why else would they sell it as a _cookie?”_

Jemma’s eyes flutter open, and she leans back over the table towards him. “I—“she falters. “People like cookies,” she says, although she’s not sure that’s a solid defense. It’s the only one she has at the moment. She’s never been _questioned_ about the proper etiquette of Oreo-eating.

“Exactly,” Grant says, meeting her eyes as he pops the rest of the cookie in his mouth. He can’t help but smile now at the look of befuddlement on her face.

“I suppose you could eat it like that, if you wanted to,” she says softly, watching his mouth, and pretending not to. “But mine is still the preferred way.”

Grant leans in a little, meeting her gaze evenly. “Of course it is.”

At that, she’s not sure what else to say, and suddenly, neither is he, so they stare silently at each other.

For Jemma, this is the moment she realizes that she just doesn’t care about him, she doesn’t just have a crush, he isn’t just a friend, and she doesn’t want to just sleep with him.

She wants to _love_ him.

~~

The truth is that she doesn’t _want_ to love him. If she had a choice, she certainly wouldn’t go for the unrequited option in love, and he’s certainly not going to go and fall in love with her, even if they have _moments_. Lust is not love, she reminds herself, and she certainly doubts he has even lustful feelings for her.

She doesn’t, however, see him watch her carefully when he thinks she isn’t looking (and often, too, even when she is).

She doesn’t feel that the teasing repartee that they share has turned even flirtier than it had been before.

She doesn’t feel it, but he does.

~~

The truth, for him, is that she _scares_ him, and he isn’t comfortable with analyzing why.

He has enough things to worry about—between missions, and his own recurring inner drama, he doesn’t have enough time to worry about anything but how nice it feels.

~~

They show up early, for the rehearsal dinner, because Grant’s the best man.

He shoves drunken groomsmen in their beds so that they wake up at an appropriate time the next day—or, at least, so that they’ll be able to _find_ them, he keeps the rings safe, he makes sure the bride and groom get to bed separately, and early, and then he returns to his hotel room.

This is all harder than it sounds, because the groomsmen are exactly drunk enough to cause the largest amount of trouble, and the bride and groom are too busy mooning over each other to go the fuck to sleep so that they can get married the next day without huge bags under their eyes.

When he drops down onto his bed after stripping down to shorts, he has precisely twenty two seconds of peace before he hears a knock at the door.

He decides to ignore it, to see if it’ll go away.

It doesn’t. It gets louder.

He finally gets up, opening the door without even looking to see who it is, deciding that if it’s an assassin, he’ll just have to strangle them with his bare hands.

“Oh,” he hears, and he shakes himself awake. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing, Jemma?” He’s distracted by the fact that she’s wearing shorts. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her wear shorts before, and she has really, really nice legs.

Jemma sighs. “Well, you see. I was looking for Skye.”

“She wanted the room facing the pool for some reason, so we traded.”

“Oh, of course.” Jemma nods along, as if it makes perfect sense. “She was contemplating jumping directly out of her window into it.”

“What?” Grant runs his hand through his hair, and Jemma suddenly realizes that he’s half naked.

“You were sleeping, I am so sorry.”

“It’s okay. So, you were looking for Skye?” Jemma nods. “Room 204.”

“Thank you.” She takes one last good look at him as he turns to reenter the room and shut the door.

“That is really just a waste,” she sighs.

She walks off to find room 204, knocks on the door, and waits patiently.

She presses her ear closely to the door and hears voices.

“Shhh,” she hears. Definitely Skye.

“Why, were you expecting someone else?” Fitz asks, and Jemma’s jaw actually drops open. “Because I’m sure we could invite them in, but then they’d have to get naked too, and there’d be this whole ordeal.”

Jemma just takes off down the hallway without waiting to hear anything else.

~~

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

_Knock knock knock knock knock._

“What?” he says, opening the door again, somehow unsurprised to see Jemma standing there.

“I need someone to sleep with,” bursts out of her, and _that_ surprises him.

That wakes Grant right up.  
  
Jemma blushes, realizing how that sounds. “Well, not that kind of sleeping, _actual_ sleeping.”

“I don’t understand,” he says helplessly. He is _so tired_ and this is not the time. It’s not that late, but it’s been a long night.

“I’m used to being close to people—there’s too much _space_ in the room, and I just need someone to sleep in a room with. Originally, I was going to sleep in a room with Skye, but she and Fitz are _sleeping together._  Like, having actual sex.”

“As opposed to pretend sex?” He raises an eyebrow.

She waves his words away. “You’ve completely missed the point.”

“Skye and Fitz are consenting adults, and if there’s a fraternization problem, it’s Coulson’s, not yours. “  
 _Or mine_ , he bites his lip to stop from saying.

“That is still not the point, Grant,” Jemma shakes her head as if she’s disappointed in him. “The point is that I need someone to sleep with.”

“You said that.”

Jemma just stares at him. “Can I—“she starts tentatively. “Can I stay here, please? You’re much less intimating than Coulson and May.”

Grant doesn’t even really have a chance to decide how bad of an idea that is before he’s nodding and letting her in, shutting the door behind her. “I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

“Oh, I didn’t expect you to. I can sleep on that chair.”

“You’re not sleeping on that chair.”                                

“Oh, well, I suppose I could sleep on the floor, that could work, I should go get the pillows from my room, and maybe Fitz’s too, because I have the second copy of his roomkey—“ Grant doesn’t know how much more of this he can take, so he picks her up, knowing instantly it’s a bad idea, as she’s pressed against his chest and _wow_ this was a bad idea, and he plants her on one side of the bed.

“Oh, okay.” Jemma pulls off the sweater she’d been wearing, and she’s left wearing a tank top, and Grant just sits down on the other side of the bed, suppressing a groan. He leans back onto the bed and decidedly does _not_ face Jemma.

He’s contemplating hitting himself with a rock to get at least a little bit of sleep when he feels Jemma poke his back. “Thank you,” she says softly when he rolls over to look at her.

“You’re welcome,” he says back, turning back onto his side.

There’s silence for a moment—a companionable, nice silence—until he turns onto his back, which is how he likes to sleep for the sake of his spine, and finds Jemma doing the same.

She smiles at him, and he can’t help but smile back.

They both direct their attention to the ceiling. “What did you do before you were in the field, when you needed company, I mean?”

“Fitz and I shared a little flat, and I’d pushed my bed up against the wall the rooms shared. As you know, he snores quite loudly,” Jemma explains with a giggle.

“I think half of your building must have known that when you lived there,” Grant says, and Jemma punches his arm in mock indignation.

She bursts out into laughter though, before she can pretend to be upset on her friend’s behalf, and Grant fights it for a moment before joining in.

“You know,” Jemma says, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Grant says, though it probably is.

“It is,” Jemma pats the arm he has down between them. Forgetting to remove her hand from his in her excitement, she continues. “I’m not saying you’re humorless—“

“That’s exactly what you’re saying,” Grant points out, not without warmth. “But I won’t hold it against you.”

“Because it’s true, of course,” Jemma says matter of factly, as if she shall brook no argument.

Grant considers arguing, but then he notices that her hand is still on his, and he looks down at their hands.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jemma’s hand flies away from his, and she clasps her hands on her stomach, just in case they decide to get any ideas.

“No problem,” he says, already missing the warmth of her hand. “We should probably go to sleep.”

“Of course,” Jemma agrees, shaking her head vigorously against her pillow.

She falls asleep before him, and while _she_ doesn’t snore, she does move around, and so he ends up with an armful of her before he even manages to drift off himself.

~~

Jemma wakes up before Grant does, and upon noticing that her head is on his chest and her arms are wrapped around him, has to do her breathing exercises to stop herself from moving and waking him up because _oh_ , how awkward it would be.

He’d certainly know she has feelings for him then—and hadn’t it been bad enough that she’d climbed into his bed the night before his brother’s wedding? Not only is she obvious, she’s probably also a terrible friend.

She carefully rolls herself off of him into her back.

She breathes a sigh of relief when she notes that he hasn’t even moved a bit. She’s pretty sure that people like Grant have assassin-like sleeping habits, so she was a bit afraid that he has a knife under his pillow he’d use to slit her throat before he’d even opened his eyes.

She’s actually genuinely surprised that he hasn’t woken up yet.

He must have been terribly tired—or maybe just aware, even in sleep, that she’s not a threat to him. She is rather unthreatening, she supposes.

She delicately untangles her bottom half from the twisted blankets, and lifts herself off the bed, grabbing her sweater, verifying that her room key is still in the pocket, and tip toeing across the floor in the socks she’d worn during her trek through the hotel hallways the night before.

She cringes at the squeak of the door when she opens it, and Grant grabs the gun under his pillow and sits up quickly to point it at her. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what she’d been afraid of.

“Uhh, sorry. I was just going back to my room to get dressed. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Grant lowers the gun and blinks wearily at her. “What time is it?”

“Oh, it’s about six-thirty. The wedding’s not for several more hours, so there’s still plenty of time to worry about all of your best manly duties. I should uh—I should go.” She walks backward out of the door, bumping right into a hotel employee who had the bad luck to be doing rounds at that exact moment. “Sorry!” She turns back to Grant. “Thank you so much for letting me stay here last night, I’ll see you at the wedding,” she shuts the door before he can respond, and he just drops his head back down onto his pillow and tries to fall back asleep.

~~

“You look hot,” Skye says later that day, laying eyes on him and Fitz when she enters the lobby a careful five minutes after Fitz appeared. “If either of you try to get a little woohoo on the side at the wedding, you will not have trouble. “ Skye’s eyes linger on Fitz, and Grant rolls his own.

“Woohoo?” Grant asks. “Do I want to know?”

“Hello, Sims? Do you spend your free time under a _rock?”_

“You look stunning,” Fitz interrupts, almost breathlessly, as if he’s lost the ability to breathe which, Grant glances at him, is probably not that far from the truth.

“While you two stand and stare at each other, I’m going to go make sure Drew isn’t making a run for it.”

“Do you think he will?” Skye asks, way too happy about the prospect for Grant’s nerves.

“No,” Grant says with a shake of his head. “Have you guys seen Coulson and May?”

“I think Melinda said something about getting a head start at the bar,” Fitz puts in.

“It’s 10 am,” Grant points out.

“That’s why Coulson went with her. Apparently she doesn’t like weddings.”

“For good reason,” Skye says, and Grant and Fitz both turn to look at her. “What, she’s not _all_ that talkative, but I’m a really good listener. I am,” she says again, when they give her incredulous looks. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Ward?”

He does, so he simply nods and goes off to find his brother.

~~

“Do I need to pull the getaway car around?” Grant asks teasingly upon opening the door to find Drew breathing into a paper bag.

Drew shakes his head. “Oh, I’m fine. I’m just—“ he breathes deeply. “Hoping she doesn’t change her mind.”

“She’s not going to change her mind, Drew,” Grant says, planting himself on the couch in the room. “You guys are very in love, and I’m pretty sure that means you’ll be fine.”

Drew snorts, and laughs. “You never did understand much of anything.”

“That’s why I have you to explain it to me.”

Drew sobers up and runs his hands down his tux, flattening creases that only exist in his mind. “You don’t need me to explain things any more than I need you to protect me anymore—okay, except in _wildly_ odd circumstances, and that’s not going to happen anymore. I’m headed back into the lab, and I’m going to work on perfectly innocuous projects that don’t involve me getting kidnapped by evil organizations that want to take over the world.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Drew sighs. “I finally have my life exactly the way I want it. Everything is exactly as it should be. I wish—I wish our parents could be here.”

“So do I. They’d be proud of you.”

Drew nods. Their parents had died when they’d been very young, and their uncle had raised them. He’d been a soft man, and he simply hadn’t had the brains or strength to know or stop the torture Jack had inflicted upon his younger siblings. Their uncle had passed away the year after Drew had left home, as if as soon as his duty had been fulfilled, his tie to life had been severed.

“They’d be proud of you too,” Drew says finally. “You seem better than the last time I saw you.”

“I am,” Grant admits. “It’s hard, but I—I’m working on it.”

“It helps to have people,” Drew says, and Grant nods in agreement.  Drew sits, contemplating. “I love her, Grant.”

“I know you do.”

“I don’t suppose you know how to tie a bowtie, because I have to go get married to the love of my life,” a goofy grin takes over Drew’s face, and Grant just nods his head.

“I think I can take care of that.”

~~

The ceremony is beautiful.

Both Drew and Sophia spend most of it crying, but they’re happy tears, so Grant thinks that means the wedding is a success.

After the reception gets underway, and he delivers a toast that almost makes _him_ cry, he realizes he hasn’t seen his team since before the ceremony, so he goes looking for them.

Coulson and May are _dancing_ around the ballroom, and Grant would swear he doesn’t even know them because they look like they’re having way too much fun for, well, them.

Skye and Fitz are nowhere to be found—which Grant thinks means they’re somewhere in a closet and wow he doesn’t want to continue that train of thought.

He finds Jemma at a table, eating a piece of cake, and peering over at the dessert table and clearly contemplating making a run for another piece when she’s done.

She takes the last bite of cake and then stands up, eyes darting around the room, and smiling because, of course, no one cares if she gets another piece of cake. She turns around and walks right into Grant, who had nudged himself around her to try not to scare her. It has the opposite effect.

“Oh!” Jemma places her hand over her heart. “You scared me.”

Grant winces. “I’m sorry.” He belatedly realizes that she looks amazing, and has to bite his bottom lip to stay focused.

Jemma shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You look . . . nice,” he says suddenly.

Jemma scrunches her nose up at that, and tilts her head. “You too. Very nice.”

Grant just stands there, staring at her, unsure what to say, because she looks beautiful, but all he can do is see her again in a shirt and shorts, curled around him, and that’s really not the right thing to be thinking about now.

“I was just about to—uh, get another glass of champagne,” she says suddenly, looking down at her glass on the table, and picking it up and downing it quickly. “See, I need more.”

“Liar,” he says, because teasing is easier, with her. “You were totally going for the cake.”

Jemma shrugs at that. “Guilty as charged, I suppose.” She sizes him up. “It’s really good cake.”

“I’m sure we could abscond with all of the leftovers, if we were clever about it.”

Jemma shakes her head sadly. “Oh no. Wedding cake is only really good at the wedding. After, it’s just sad cake.”

“Sad cake?” he lifts a brow.

“Yes,” she nods her head. “Sad cake.”

Since it’s clear that she’s not going to explain further, he simply says, “Ah. So, cake?” He offers her his arm for some reason, and nearly slaps himself because it seems so silly.

“Of course,” she beams at him, taking his proffered arm, and he relaxes. He’s overthinking things.

~~

Jemma goes with Grant when he goes to congratulate the newlyweds before the bouquet tossing, because they’ll leave straight after that.

She watches as Grant even hugs his new sister-in-law and promises to come visit them at some point in the next year after they get settled, and her heart warms. As much as she’s grown to think of Grant as a secret teddy bear, it surprises her to see him show public displays of the affection that she knows he’s capable of.

The secret fear in her heart, that she’s starting to love him, is solidified.

Minutes later, in an interesting turn of events, May catches the bouquet. She takes one look at it, and shrugs—though Jemma thinks she sees the edges of her mouth pulled up in the barest of smiles, though that might just be wishful thinking.

~~

Later, they lean against a wall and watch the party die down. Skye and Fitz have reappeared, looking mussed and deliriously happy, and Coulson and May have already headed back to their rooms. The team is staying until the next day, because the bus is conveniently undergoing repairs that Coulson scheduled months before. This means they’ll all have to fly back commercial the next day to pick the bus up, but it’s not the end of the world.

Grant and Jemma just wait, and watch.

“Last dance,” Grant says finally. “Want to?”

“I’m not very good at it,” Jemma says, chagrined. “I might stomp on your toes.”

“Neither am I. I have some training for undercover ops, but I’m not particularly good,” Grant admits. “Anyway, it’s a slow dance. I can’t imagine you’ll manage to stomp very hard.”

“You’d be surprised,” Jemma laughs, letting him pull her out onto the dance floor for the slow song.

They don’t even really dance so much as sway back and forth, her head on his chest, and his arms around her. It’s nice, and probably the quickest four minutes of her life.

“You know, I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type to ask a girl to dance,” Jemma says when they music stops, and they walk across the room to the bar, where the bartender is tending to someone else. Jemma stares at a bottle of champagne, and contemplates just grabbing it and running, but then Grant beats her to it, winking and hiding it by his side as they speed walk out of the ballroom.

“I’m not. I just thought it might be nice.”

“It was,” Jemma says, still flushed from their little adventure as they take the elevator up to the third floor, where Grant’s room is located. When they reach the door, she suddenly feels awkward. “I should probably go.”

“You’re going to leave me to drink this all by myself?”

“I’m sure you’ll manage just fine.”

“I’ve already had a few glasses, imagine what trouble I could get into,” Grant points out. “Plus, I seem to remember someone climbing into my bed last night because she couldn’t sleep alone.”

Jemma sputters at that, which gives Grant the opening he needs to open the door and nudge her inside.

“Well, since I’m here—“ she decides, since it _would_ be rude to leave him to drink alone. She works to open it, and giggles at the bubbles. She realizes she’s completely forgotten to grab or look for glasses, so she quickly takes a swig to limit the mess and hands it to Grant. “I suppose we’ll have to make do.”

“Okay, Jemma,” Grant says, taking a drink. “This feels a lot less classy without fancy glasses.”

Jemma flops back onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Of course it does.” She uses her hands to prop herself back up. “But that’s part of the fun. The impropriety of it, you know?”

Grant nods in agreement, and sits next to her, taking another sip. “I think the point is the alcohol.”

“That too,” Jemma agrees, taking the bottle from him, and smiling at him with that smile that twists his stomach in knots.

~~

Most of the bottle later, Grant and Jemma are propped up against the pillows on the bed, watching some television show that Grant has never seen before, which is not all that difficult to come by. He doesn’t actually watch television unless someone forces him to do it, and most of the people in his life have more important things to worry about.

“Let me get this straight, he’s cheating on his wife _and_ his mistress? Who has the time for that?” Grant asks, shaking his head, which feels heavier than it should.

Jemma considers the question, “Kings, presidents, assholes—not me, that’s for certain.”

“You only have time for the wife and the mistress?” he teases.

“Exactly,” she says, pushing her index finger against his chest, and thenleaning her head against it. “You have a nice chest.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“You’re supposed to say I have a nice chest too—“ she says, smiling. “Though I suppose that would be a tad awkward.”

Grant just rubs small circles against her back. “What do you think makes someone cheat on someone they claim to love?” he asks suddenly.

“Not actually loving them,” Jemma supplies, sitting up again, and making Grant frown at the absence of her leaning against him. “Though it could be something in their brain—maybe it’s their brain chemistry. I could always start a business—testing men to determine why they cheat—vivisection, in the name of science!” she declares.

“Who said anything about vivisection?”

“I did,” she assures him, petting his hair. “You’re very pretty.”

He tilts his head down to look at her and smiles, “Do you want to vivisect me?”

“Not particularly,” Jemma says, meeting his eyes, and leaning into the hand he raises to smooth down hair that isn’t even sticking up.

She’s not entirely sure which of them leans first, but they both lean, and by the time their lips meet, Jemma feels completely sober again, and utterly breathless.

It’s tentative at first, and not what she’d imagined kissing him would be like, but then his hands are cupping her face, and she’s closing the distance between them to slide onto his lap.

Her body feels so incredibly hot, so she strips her dress off, tossing it on the floor, and then starts in on unbuttoning his shirt as he runs his hands up and down her body. She laughs against his lips when she gets stuck on buttons, and he sits up, pushing her back and her smile fades.

She breathes heavily, worrying that she’s completely ruined this.

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Grant pulls at the buttons of his shirt, nimbly undoing them and tossing the dress shirt to the side and Jemma pulls at his pants, and then presses herself up against him—skin and the barest of clothing.

Somehow, it’s still too much, because their skin is on fire. Grant lies back, and Jemma lets him nuzzle her neck as she reaches for his cock through his underwear, making him hiss when she squeezes it lightly.

Grant reaches his hands up again to frame her face, and she holds still, smiling down at him. “We can stop, if you want,” he says.

Jemma leans down to kiss him again, “That’s not what I want,” she says softly when she lifts her head back up.

She pulls down her panties, and before she can do much more his hand is there, and the roughness of his skin slides through her pink wet folds before massaging the area around her clit.

She moans and that gives him the chance to roll her over onto her back and shift down the bed so that he can exchange his fingers for his mouth, and her hands clutch at his shoulders.

She’s in that beautiful place right before orgasm when he inserts a finger, loosening her up, and his tongue works assiduously and pushes her right over, and she cries out.

She’s breathless and her body is humming and vibrating as he pushes her harder and harder and harder as her body shakes with each wave of her orgasm.

She tugs on his hair when it’s just too much for her, and he stops, leaning over and settling down right next to her on the bed.

She takes a moment to get her breath back. “Where’s my bag?”

“Uhh—“ Grant is painfully hard. “On the floor next to your dress,” he says with a smile, leaning in to kiss her neck.

She leans into it for a moment before climbing over him and reaching down to grab her bag, reaching in and pulling out a condom, which she clumsily puts on him.

He puts his hand over hers, “I got it,” and she doesn’t even feel embarrassed, she just leans in and kisses his cheek.

“I’ve never been very good at that part,” she admits.

“I’ve got you covered,” he says, pressing his forehead against hers.

For a moment, he thinks he might like to stay that way forever, but then she moves, and lifts herself onto him, and that thought is definitely gone.

He caresses her skin, rubbing his thumbs in circles on her thighs while she adjusts to the feeling of him inside of her. She leans down to kiss his neck, “I’ve got this,” she promises, and then she moves, and yes, yes she does.

She scrapes her nails against his stomach, not painfully, just enough to intensify the building pressure she knows he must feel as she rises and sinks back down onto him, again and again, riding him slowly, and then faster and faster until he comes, and she feels a second orgasm slam down on her, as he reaches up and strokes her clit again.

She lies down next to him, staring awkwardly at the ceiling as he disposes of the condom and gets back into bed, pulling her close to him.

The warmth that’s still pulsating through her body reaches her heart, and she aches with it.

When he holds her, she knows that she’s far beyond being in danger of falling, she’s completely, utterly, fallen in love with him.

In sleep he pulls her even closer to him, and she listens to the sound of his heartbeat, and her own breaks, just a little, at the knowledge that this can never happen again.

~~

The next morning, he’s in the shower when she wakes up, so she grabs her things and plans on making a run for it when he opens the door and smiles at her, grabbing her hand and pulling her in with him.

Maybe just once more, she promises herself—or twice, by the end of it, she amends.

It’ll be fine.

Her heart will stay intact.

~~

Later, when they’ve checked out, and they’re waiting for the rest of their team to appear, Jemma feels frazzled.

When Skye and Fitz appear, deliberately apart, trying to keep their secret, Jemma wonders if they can tell what’s happened.

Fitz, as well as he knows her, is too distracted to notice, instead he starts talking about the new project he wants help with, and she gets drawn into the conversation, because there’s nothing quite like science to distract her from the woeful state of her heart.

Skye tries to draw Grant into a conversation, and it’s surprisingly effective, because it’s just about the wedding, because they hadn’t really seen too much of each other the day before.

Jemma does _not_ look in Grant’s direction, even though she can, at times, swear she feels Grant’s eyes burning into her.

It’s disconcerting, to say the least.

~~

She and Skye end up sitting next to each other—and she tries not to think too hard about the ‘coincidence’ of Skye and Fitz both being in the restrooms at the same time, because then she’ll have to think about the mile high club, and the fact that depending on how long they’ve been doing this, they’ve probably had sex all over the bus and maybe even in the _lab_.

She’s contemplating this at the same time that Grant nudges her shoulder. “What?”

“You just looked—I don’t know, disgusted?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just following a particularly unfriendly train of thought that may require me to finally invent brain bleach.”

Grant raises an eyebrow. He’s sitting across the aisle from her and Fitz, who had—again, Jemma, don’t go through that train of thought—left for the restroom much too long ago. “Do I want to know?”

Jemma reaches out and pats his hand. “No, you don’t,” and she pulls it back, berating herself. “So this is a long flight.”

“Yeah, it is,” he agrees, bemused.

“Fitz is contemplating a new version of the night night gun,” she says suddenly.

“Does the new version include a new name?”

“Sadly, no,” she says with an understanding smile. “You know, I argued against the name to begin with, but once Fitz sets his mind to something, he doesn’t let up easily.”

“He’s not the only one,” Grant says, and she stares down at her hands. It seems like he’s saying something about them too, and it unnerves her.

“I think I’m going to try to nap,” she tells him, even though she’s not the least bit tired.

Grant just nods. “Okay.”

She then spends the next seven hours pretending to be asleep, which is, somewhat ironically, exhausting.

~~

“I still think it would be nice to have an aquarium,” Fitz says, not quite pouting, but not quite, well, not.

“Better luck next time,” Grant says, even though they both know that it’s never going to happen, even if they build it themselves. Fury would have a field day, and these days he’s in what passes for a good mood.

Fitz sighs, and Grant watches as he drags his suitcase into the bus.

“So what repairs were actually made this time?” Grant asks conversationally when Coulson walks up next to him.

“Just some minor things,” Coulson says with a twinkle in his eye, and Grant shakes his head. Of course. Grant is mildly amused until Coulson turns to face him with a serious face and says, “Between you and Simmons and the other two, I have a lot of paperwork to fill out to keep HR off our asses.”

Grant winces, and Coulson strides away, happily having winded him.

May walks right past him, giving him a look that says yes, she knows too.

When Jemma and Skye come over together, he’s still a little off-balance.

“What’s weighing on your mind super-agent man?” Skye asks, with a rather tame imitation of his gruffness.

Grant says nothing, and Skye just shakes her head. “One of these days, you will open up to someone,” she declares. “I just hope I can watch.”

Jemma, who has been looking down at her bag, turns a particularly nice shade of red.

Skye stalks off at that, and Jemma moves to follow her when Grant holds out his hand and shakes his head, indicating that he wants to speak with her.

Strangely, he notes, she seems to have to actually decide whether or not to cut and run. He does see her eyes dart to the bus, where she could make a run for it, but that wouldn’t really help, because he’d have to follow her right in.

They wait until Skye is out of earshot before saying anything out of an unspoken agreement.

“Coulson knows, and I’m pretty sure May does too,” he tells her without preamble.

Jemma finally looks up at him at that. “Knowswhat, exactly?”

“About us.”

“Oh, well,” she tucks stray hair behind her hair. “Since we aren’t actually an _us_ , we’ll just go back to normal, and pretend it never happened, and I’m sure they’ll have the decency to do the same.” Jemma frowns. “How do you think they knew?”

There is a warmth in him that diminishes at her words, and he feels himself quickly losing the happy glow that pulses inside of him every time she talks or looks at him—which has been omnipresent since the wedding reception.

“You did spend both nights in my hotel room. And we did spend most of our time together at the reception.” He pushes at the ache clawing at his insides, trying to stay focused. He’s not entirely sure what it meant to him, so he can’t blame her for knowing, and not feeling like it meant anything.

“That’s true,” Jemma concedes, and they just stare at each other. The often companionable silences they’ve shared have left them terribly unprepared for the awkwardness of this one.

“Hey—“ Coulson says, reappearing at the opening to the bus. “It’s time to go, love birds.”

~~

After a particularly nasty mission in Australia, they’re all grateful that they took a few days off to relax, because they definitely needed it.

“We are beyond overworked,” Skye says with a sigh, looking at the wreckage around them. “Why does so much of our job involve cataloguing crap?”

“I would very much like to know the answer to that question,” Jemma agrees, tossing her a pair of gloves. “We don’t need another Asgardian staff or Chitauri helmet incident. I’ve been working on these for months. They’re designed specifically to keep out biological contaminants, and as much nonsensical mystical nastiness as possible.”

She hands a pair to Grant at that, avoiding his eyes. They’ve been awkward for days over this.

She hates him, a little, for being so unbothered by the tension between them. Half of her wants to shake him and make him show some kind of emotion, because he’s closed up, all of the progress they’d made in making him feel comfortable around them has been undone. The other half of her still wants to kiss him and, well, a lot more than that if she’s honest.

She doesn’t feel like being honest.

“Do these come in green?” Fitz asks when she hands him his pair.

“No,” she says shortly. “During my research I determined that this was the most magically resistant color, so they will stay _this_ color.” It’s a particularly ugly one, she’ll admit—and technically she’s sure that the study she’d read that on had been a complete joke, but it gives her a perverse thrill to see her team in the gloves. Plus, magic is all rather nonsensical, she thinks with a shake of her head. She may as well be entertained by it.

“That’s ridiculous,” May puts in. She’s normally unflappable, but apparently the magicalquality of a color is enough to unnerve her.

“I really hate this job sometimes,” Skye moans, picking up what looks like a disfigured foot in a glowing jar, and handling it to Jemma who has the spark in her eye she always gets when she’s about to do _science._

Fitz just smiles and shakes his head. “This group had quite the eclectic collection. They dabbled in a bit of everything. I’d really like to get my hands on that gun that’s supposed to turn people into kittens.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t work,” Grant says dismissively.

“I hope it does,” Skye says dejectedly. “Because that’s the only thing that could save us from the bagging and tagging. It’ll take _days_. Maybe weeks. I’d much rather be a kitten.”

“I don’t think I’d particularly like that,” Jemma says with a shake of her head.

“I’d probably die,” Fitz cuts in. “I have a terrible cat allergy.I just want to take the thing apart.”

Grant just shakes his head, fighting a smile. “And we all have a job to do, so leave the cat talk for another time, okay?” he says.

~~

“I think Fitz is sad that he couldn’t find the cat gun. I saw him moaning about it on his way to bed,” Grant says, leaning against the opening of the lab days later, when they’ve finally finished loading up everything, and they’re about to start drop them off at their designated areas.

Jemma stiffens at the sound of his voice, and Grant feels a twinge of guilt. “Life is full of disappointments,” she says evenly.

Grant is torn between wanting to make an excuse and leave, and wanting to go in and fix things between them, because somewhere along the line they made a misstep, and he’s tired of it.

In the end it’s the exhaustion in her face that spurs him forward into the lab, shutting the doors behind him.

“Am I one of those disappointments?”

She looks up at him carefully before pulling off her goggles, and snapping off her gloves, and placing whatever she’d been studying into its container and putting it back into her storage area.

She stops, as if to calm her nerves, and she turns to face him. “Of course not.”

“You just put away everything you were working on to say that?”

She simply rolls her eyes. “Not everything I do is about you. I’ve simply decided that I’m no longer in the mood to work at the moment.”

“Which has nothing to do with me, of course.” Somehow, he doubts that.

“Of course,” she says, smiling slightly despite herself.

“I’m sorry.” Grant closes the distance between them. “For whatever I did that made things awkward between us.”

Jemma laughs. “I’m pretty sure that was a joint effort. We did, after all, have sex at your brother’s wedding.”

“Is that all?” Grant is surprised. “I thought—“

Jemma tilts her head in confusion. “Did you think I was upset with you for something else? I just—we had sex, and it was nice—“

“Nice?”

“Very nice,” she corrects. “But it was a one-time thing, and I—“

“It as a three-time thing, as I recall, unless there was someone else in the shower with me,” he teases.

Jemma blushes a deep pink at that. “I just didn’t want things to be awkward.” She can feel herself swaying toward him now, and she’ll be utterly lost if she doesn’t step away now.

She wills herself to do it, but the pull her body feels from his is too much. She hasn’t been able to think about much besides that night—and morning, she amends—since it happened.

Grant sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t want things to be awkward either, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Well, try harder,” she says more sharply than she means to. She winces.

“At the very least we should talk about it.”

Jemma contemplates her options. They could talk, or they could _feel_.

It’s easy enough for her to launch herself at him.Some people are rather easily distracted by sex, herself and Grant included.

She decides, instead, to do something that doesn’t feel incredibly awkward, and erases the tension between them.

This has the unexpected benefit of Grant discovering that Jemma has an exceptionally talented mouth.

~~

In the following days, Jemma tells herself constantly to _stop_ , to get a hold of her hormones, because she is better than this—and the truth is that if it were just her hormones, she could handle it, but it isn’t. She’s in love with him, and she’s only ever been in love with science before, and somehow this is so much more painful than a failed experiment.

She tells herself that she’ll stop after one last time, but one last time turns into another and another, and her job satisfaction, to her dismay, increases.

He makes her _happy_.

It’s absolutely abominable.

The sex is fantastic, of course, and she learns _so much_ , and manages to teach him a thing or two.

The problem is that even though she’s blissfully happy, there’s a tight feeling in her chest because she _loves_ him, and as much as she’d like it to be just sex, it isn’t. Not for her.

He never gives her any indication that he wants more, and so she doesn’t give him any hint either.

Sometimes, when it’s just a quickie in the lab or the backseat of one of the SHIELD vehicles, or any number of places it just sort of _happens_ , it’s much better, because it’s fast and hard and quick, and she doesn’t have to feel as much until later, when her heart feels like it’s been ripped out of her chest and her feelings come crashing down on her.

Worse than that though is the feeling she gets when they take their time, when they wait until everyone’s asleep and they tease each other until they both explode, breathless.

She loves him, and it’s the best and worst thing to ever happen to her.

~~

Fitz is, of course, the first one to actually notice how she feels.

They’re working in the lab one day, and he’s complaining about a strange smell coming from one of her experiments, and she just bites her tongue and ignores him.

“Jemma,” he says, growing concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she shakes her head. “I’ll try to be more careful with . . . smells in the future.”

Fitz narrows his eyes at her. “You’re upset. I can tell.”

“I’m fine,” she says lightly. “Absolutely fine.”

“Now, that’s not true. Is this about Ward? I’ve seen the way the two of you are together.”

Jemma smiles, slightly. “You know me too well. I’m just being silly.”

“You’re the furthest thing from silly.” Fitz frowns. “Did he call you silly? He’s silly.”

Jemma laughs. “No, he didn’t. You’re being silly now. Why would I be upset about something like that?” She slides her hands out on the workspace in front of her and plops her head down onto it gently, because she’s not an idiot.

“Jemma,” Fitz says, patting her shoulder awkwardly. “Did you have a lover’s spat?”

Jemma laughs again. “No,” she says, lifting her head. “I’m just in love with him.”

“Oh,” Fitz says. From the look on his face he’s having trouble processing it. “Really? Ward of all people? That’s—“ he looks at her face, and realizes that this is the last thing she needs, “Okay, I guess. I'd expect him to roll around on the floor screeching 'I've been emotionally compromised' at the first sign of human feelings.”

“It’s not,” she says, tapping her fingers lightly against the workspace to distract herself. “I’m not going to _tell_ him, obviously.”

Fitz shakes his head. “He’s clearly in love with you too. I don’t think he’d mind.” He’s of half a mind to call her silly now, because she’s being irrational and it’s very unlike her.

Jemma just shakes her head, not even listening to him, not really. “It’s just a passing fancy. I’ll get over it.”

Fitz just stares at her. “Are you listening?”

“Of course, it may take some time . . . “ Jemma trails off, and thus his question is answered.

“What is this, _Hercules_? Do I need to find you singing goddesses so that you’ll stop being so emotionally constipated?”

“Don’t be silly, Leo—“ Jemma looks at him, clearly bemused. “Goddesses don’t exist.”

Fitz just blinks at her. “If gods exist, it isn’t that hard to imagine that goddesses do too.”

Jemma snorts. “Gods don’t exist. Thor, for instance, is just an alien with lucky genes. He’s not a god, he’s just the product of a different evolutionary system.”

Fitz just shakes his head. “You’re hopeless.”

Jemma, still not actually listening, just continues. “I should wonder how many millennia it took them to develop those traits,” and it’s clear the conversation about Ward, and her feelings, is over.

~~

Loving Grant changes certain things for Jemma.

The missions aren’t too different, because she’s _always_ worried about everyone who goes out into the field, and so going from caring about to loving Grant doesn’t change things too much.

(This is what she tells herself, but the tightness in her chest that doesn’t release until he’s back safe and sound each and every time proves her a liar.)

She’s afraid for him. She's afraid for herself too, because she can’t bear the idea of losing him, and she can’t even tell him that.

~~

“Idiot,” Jemma hisses as she cleans Grant’s wounds. “Going to get himself killed.”

Grant knows her well enough to know that while she’s complaining about him, he should definitely not try to interrupt her, so he sits and takes the string of insults that are not quite directed at him, but are certainly _about_  him, and waits until she’s ready.

She finishes a few minutes later, and finally looks him in the eyes. “What was that about?”

“I completed the mission,” he says simply. The truth is that the mission had _terrified_ him, and for a moment he’d imagined never seeing her again, and it had scared him so much he’d burned through the men who had him outmanned and outgunned before he’d even had time to make a plan.

“I am aware,” she says acerbically, and he winces, because he is really in trouble. “You were supposed to abort the mission and wait for back up.”

“It was a time sensitive mission,” he says evenly. “And I made a judgment call. A call you don’t have the right to question.” The last bit is probably a mistake, which he knows even before the words finish spilling from his lips.

“Ah,” Jemma says calmly. Too calmly. “I see.”

Grant reaches out and grabs Jemma’s hands, which he then realizes are trembling, so he pulls her closer, hugging her to him.

“You could have died,” she says against his chest. “And I’m getting my tears in your cuts.”

“It’s okay,” he tells her. “It’s okay.”

“You could have died,” she whispers again.

“I came back,” he says softly. “I’ll always come back.”

She’s crying against his shirt, he realizes, and he just holds her. She needs this, he realizes, and so does he.

When the crying slows, he lifts her head, and cups her cheek with one hand. “I’ll always come back to you, okay?”

Jemma is steely-eyed when she nods at him. “I don’t normally cry like that over missions.”

“I know,” he says, because he does. “You can always cry with me, okay?”

“I don’t think—“ she sniffs, and he shakes his head.

“You can always cry with me,” he repeats.

She gives him a considering look. “You can cry with me too, if you want,” she offers softly, and he realizes that if he had tears to spare, if he hadn’t broken that part of him a long time ago, he might.

“Thank you,” he caresses her hair, pulling her back towards him.

That night they don’t have sex; they just sleep together, curled around each other tightly.

When they do, later, it’s different from all of the times before.

~~

Later, he starts to tell her things. Instead of revealing only small details, accidentally, he shares full stories, and paints a picture of his childhood, of his brothers, his parents, his uncle, his schooling afterward, and why he’d joined SHIELD.

In response, she tells him about herself, sharing things even Fitz doesn’t know.

He breaks down her walls bit by bit, even though she tries to hold back, and tries not to keep opening herself up to heartbreak.

She fails miserably.

~~

“Do you remember,” she asks softly one night, while he’s filling out a mission report and she’s finishing up an analysis of some weapon they’re supposed to drop off the next day, “the day that I contracted the Chitauri virus?”

Grant freezes at that, looking up at her with concern. “I’m not sure I could forget it.”

Jemma _hmms_ at that. “Neither could I. I don’t think I slept a wink for days.”

“You didn’t,” he says, because they’d all noticed, which is why he’d delicately nudged her up that tree.

“I didn’t really manage it until I overcame that fear—and then it was just too easy, with you standing there, promising to catch me,” Jemma smiles at him through her protective goggles, and he wants to kiss her.

“You did all the hard work,” he says, because it’s true. “You went up the tree.”

Jemma shrugs. “You did catch me the first time,” she points out, “So I knew you were good for it.” Her eyes twinkle, and Grant leans over to kiss her, surprising them both.

That she can joke about it now makes his heart feel lighter, because he doesn’t want her to have to carry that around with all of the other day to day stresses she already worries about. “Thank you for doing it so that Fitz didn’t have to,” she says when they resettle. “I don’t know that he wouldn’t have ended up as traumatized as I did.”

“He did anyway,” Grant points out. “You two are like peas in a pod. I think if something happened to you, it would kill him.” And me, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it.

Jemma shakes her head, “I don’t like that responsibility.”

“It’s hard to carry,” Grant agrees. “But that’s what you do when you care about people, and they care about you.”

Jemma considers his words carefully. “I know,” she says finally. “We’re a team, and that’s what teams do.” She seems almost ready to let the conversation fade until something occurs to her. “How did you feel, when you jumped out after me?”

Grant hesitates before speaking, “It was the moment I realized how much I cared about the team, and I accepted that responsibility.”

Jemma nods, and then hesitates. “I’ve always wanted to know, why were you the one? Why not May?”

Grant shrugs, “I got there first.”

“But why?” she presses.

“That was the moment,” he repeats. “As soon as the alarm went off, I knew what you were going to do, and I knew I had to stop you. And that? That I could do. I couldn’t be in there with you and Fitz, and help you find a cure. It wasn’t something I could fight until then.”

“Oh,” Jemma says, stripping off a glove and reaching her hand out to touch his. “Of course. You took it personally that you couldn’t protect us.”

“Of course I did.”

Jemma lets out a breath and looks around the lab. “It isn’t all on you.”

“I know,” he says, because he does now. Kind of.

“It isn’t all on you,” she repeats, as if she’s planning on browbeating it into him if necessary. “You can let us carry the weight too. Because we—" she furrows her brow, thinking. “We can help you carry _your_ weight too, if you need.”

The last bit of extra pain he’s been carrying around inside of him, that’s been shrinking and shrinking, so much faster than he’d thought it would, dulls completely. It’s there, and it’s a part of him, but maybe the difference, he thinks, between him and that Asgardian had been that Grant isn’t alone.

He reaches out to grasp her ungloved hand and squeezes it.

He feels whole.

~~

He loves her.

He loves watching her do things he doesn’t actually understand that well, and he loves how particular she is about most things, and the way she is so staunchly in favor of science over any idea of mysticism and magic, and the way she smiles at him, and even the way she drools, just a little, when she sleeps.

He loves the way she fits in his arms, and the way she _feels_ , and the warm, achy, blissful feeling he gets around her, or thinking about her, or—well, doing much of anything.

He’s in love, and it’s fucking fantastic.

And so, one day, when they’re wrapped around each other in post-coital bliss, he tells her. “I love you.”

She hits her head from getting out of bed so quickly that she actually falls on the floor. “Ow,” she says, rubbing her head where he’s sure a bump is forming, and he’s pretty sure this all a lot less fantastic than what he’d imagined.

“I didn’t realize—“ she says. “Oh.”

“What didn’t you realize?”

Jemma shakes her head and then winces, holding her head. “I didn’t realize you felt that way about me.”

Grant frowns, disgruntled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

 “I thought we were just having ‘fun,’ as it were.” She looks at him guiltily after she says that, because she _knows_ it’s a lie.

“Why would you possibly think this didn’t _matter?”_ he asks her, clearly aghast, sitting up on the bed.

Jemma shrugs nonchalantly, as if this isn’t tearing her up inside. “I’ve had my share of lovers, but I’ve never—they’ve never loved me, and I never loved them, and I didn’t really—I didn’t know what to do with you.”

“Jemma—“ he slides off the bed and kneels down beside her, placing his hands over hers. “What did you think we were doing?”

“Sleeping together?” she offers up tentatively, knowing that it’s not quite the answer he wants.

“Jemma,” he shakes his head, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. “I love you,” he says again.

This time, she doesn’t feel like her heart is breaking. This time, she feels hopeful. “Do you?”

“I love you,” he says again.“And I was sort of hoping you’d love me back.”

She smiles, slightly. “I do,” she says softly. She wants to kick herself. “For too long, I’m afraid.”

He presses the softest of kisses against her lips. “I’ve never been in love before,” he admits. “So if I messed up our mating dance, or gave you the wrong signals, I’m sorry. It took me a really long time to just be able to believe it myself.”

Jemma sighs. “I really messed things up.”

“No, you didn’t. We’re here, we’re together. You might have to put up with my general lack of understanding of popular culture, and I’ll have to put up with the fact that you don’t know how to properly eat an Oreo—“ she smiles at that, and he knows everything is going to be fine.

“I’m pretty sure you’re the wrong one,” she pokes him, lightly.

Grant smiles, shaking his head, even though it doesn’t really matter. He kisses her again. “I love you,” he says, his voice heavy and raspy with emotion.

She grasps the sides of his face with her hands, looking deep into his eyes, wanting to remember every single aspect of this moment. “I love you too,” she says finally.

There’s not much talking after that, as he picks her up and they both fall back down onto the bed, except for whispered _I love yous_ with every kiss and slide of skin against skin as heart finally meets heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you didn't hate it.
> 
> Also, yes, there was a minor reference to Darcy, because I adore her, and I bet Coulson does too.


End file.
